Police call off search for ‘lioness’ in Berlin

Berlin, Jul 21 (EFE).- German police on Friday ended an operation that began a day earlier after a reported sighting near Berlin of a big cat, which was initially thought to be a lioness.

Michael Grubert, the mayor of Kleinmachnow, a town just outside Berlin, told a press conference that the animal was thought “with relative certainty” to be a boar.

“In an in-depth analysis of the video material, the municipality of Kleinmachnow assessed that, after considering all the information on the video, it was not a lioness,” a statement by Brandeburg police said.

A call first came in at midnight on Wednesday, and mobile phone footage on social media that was assessed by police on Thursday found that it could not be ruled out that the “wild animal” was a lioness on the loose in the suburbs of the German capital.

Although no local zoos, animal parks or other similar facilities had reported a missing lion, a massive search operation was launched, involving drones, thermal imaging, patrol cars and a helicopter, while veterinarians and hunters were brought in to help with the operation.

A large number of police officers were deployed to the districts where the emergency alert was issued, urging people to be vigilant and keep their pets indoors.

While the operation has been called off because of the lack of “objective, concrete evidence that the animal is actually a lioness”, Berlin police, who were supporting their colleagues from Brandenburg, said they would remain “vigilant” in areas in the south of the capital. EFE

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